It’s been 14 long years since Alison Krauss released an album with Union Station, her go-to group since the late ‘80s, but it’s not as if she’s been lazing around in the interim. Since that 2011 offering, Paper Airplane, Krauss has released another solo album (Windy City, her fourth) and a second collaboration with Robert Plant (Raise the Roof), while also keeping busy on several other varied projects. All of her hard work has paid off handsomely: Krauss has earned more Grammy awards, 27, than almost any other female artist in history—2007’s Raising Sand, the first of the Plant collaborations, alone won several, including Album of the Year—and she hasn’t gotten there by playing it safe. While still often categorized as a bluegrass artist, Krauss and Union Station rarely play the traditionalists, preferring to use the genre’s strictly defined elements more as a starting point than a rein, and Arcadia is no exception. That becomes apparent from the album’s first track, “Looks Like the End of the Road,” which was written by Jeremy Lister and—as the title suggests—is not exactly the feel-good anthem of the year. “Goodbye to the world that I know,” Krauss sings in the chorus, “looks like the end of the road”—her delivery tender but fraught, the accompaniment broadly orchestral in its reach. Some other tracks, too, tend to lean toward fragility and heartbreak (“The Wrong Way,” “Forever”), and then there are those that are more upbeat. But regardless of the sentiment, Arcadia never rings false. Union Station is in large part a reason for that. Krauss (who plays fiddle as well as sings) and the core band—the legendary Jerry Douglas (Dobro/lap steel), Ron Block (banjo, guitar, vocals), Barry Bales (bass, vocals) and new member Russell Moore, who provides co-lead vocals on some tracks, baritone harmonies on others—are as instinctual and impeccably synced an outfit as any. Whether on those tunes that do in fact track closer to trad (“Snow,” “Richmond on the James”) or those that scramble the lines (“One Ray of Shine,” the exquisite album-closing “There’s a Light Up Ahead”), Alison Krauss and Union Station are an ever-rewarding listen, and Arcadia, despite the wait for its arrival, is among their finest yet.